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Assassination of Carter Harrison III
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Assassination of Carter Harrison III
On October 28, 1893, Patrick Eugene Prendergast fatally shot Carter Harrison III (the mayor of Chicago) inside Harrison's residence. Prendergast's assassination of Harrison was driven by a delusion Prendergast held that he was entitled to be appointed the city's corporation counsel (a role he held no qualification for), and that Harrison had wrongfully deprived him of this.
The assassination occurred two days prior to the closing day of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and led to the cancellation of the world's fair's closing ceremony. It quickly drew comparisons to the 1881 assassination of U.S. president James A. Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau. Like Prendergast, Guiteau had been a deranged office seeker whose actions were motivated by their having not been given a patronage appointment that he perceived he was entitled to. Harrison's death was met with large-scale public mourning in Chicago, with his funeral ranking as one of the most-attended in history. The national reaction was also immense, with the assassination becoming one of the most sensationalized events of its day. For a long time afterwards, Harrison's assassination was considered a well-remembered event in American history. However, it has since fallen into relative obscurity.
In the subsequent murder trial, Prendergast was found guilty of murder in the first-degree, and was sentenced to death. Legal efforts led by attorney Clarence Darrow to forestall his execution (including an attempt to have Prendergast legally found to be currently insane, a condition which under Illinois law would have rendered him ineligible for execution) were ultimately unsuccessful. Prendergast was executed by hanging.
Carter Harrison III was an American politician who served two tenures as mayor of Chicago: the first between 1879 and 1887 and the second beginning in 1893. Harrison was a Democrat.
Harrison unsuccessfully ran in 1891 to become mayor again. Harrison was returned to office in early 1893, winning election to an unprecedented fifth term as mayor. His fifth term overlapped with the city's hosting of the World's Columbian Exposition, a significant world's fair that was scheduled to hold its closing ceremonies on October 31. Harrison was due soon after to marry his fiancé, Annie Howard, on November 12.
Harrison was a well-liked mayor. Dubbed "the common man's mayor". and "the people's mayor", he made himself accessible to citizens. He took great pleasure in riding around the city's neighborhoods on horseback, stopping to speak with residents. He also made it known that his door was "always open", allowing citizens to drop-in for audiences with him at his residence. He had ordered his staff never to turn away any visitor to his residence. His policy of giving drop-in audiences to residents would lead to him finding himself fatally at the receiving end of gunshots fired by the aggrieved Patrick Eugene Prendergast.
The assassination was carried out by Patrick Eugene Prendergast, a newspaper distributor. Prendergast was reported to have suffered a severe head injury from a fall at the age of four, from which he was unconscious for a long period of time and suffered vomiting for four weeks after. He was described as a peculiar child, solitary, irritable and excitable, with a poor memory who did poorly in school. Prendergast left home at 16 because of imaginary persecution and by 18 had developed grandiose ideas of his capabilities and became a fanatic for the single-tax promoted by Henry George.
Prendergast became a newspaper distributor in Chicago, where he lobbied for improvements in Chicago's railroad grade crossings, which he saw as a danger to the public. He supported Carter Harrison's 1890s election campaigns under the delusion that if Harrison won the election, Prendergast himself would receive an appointment as the city's corporation counsel. Prendergast had a fixation with writing postcards. In order to support Carter Harrison's pursuit to regain the mayoralty, Prendergast sent rambling postcards to prominent Chicagoans urging them to vote for Harrison. Among those who received such a postcard was prominent lawyer A. S. Trude, who would later prosecute the case against Prendergast in the murder trial that followed the assassination. Prendergast sent these postcards in support of Harrison for more than two years before Harrison was successful in winning the 1893 Chicago mayoral election. Prendergast believed that his letters had been responsible for Harrison's success in the election.
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Assassination of Carter Harrison III
On October 28, 1893, Patrick Eugene Prendergast fatally shot Carter Harrison III (the mayor of Chicago) inside Harrison's residence. Prendergast's assassination of Harrison was driven by a delusion Prendergast held that he was entitled to be appointed the city's corporation counsel (a role he held no qualification for), and that Harrison had wrongfully deprived him of this.
The assassination occurred two days prior to the closing day of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and led to the cancellation of the world's fair's closing ceremony. It quickly drew comparisons to the 1881 assassination of U.S. president James A. Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau. Like Prendergast, Guiteau had been a deranged office seeker whose actions were motivated by their having not been given a patronage appointment that he perceived he was entitled to. Harrison's death was met with large-scale public mourning in Chicago, with his funeral ranking as one of the most-attended in history. The national reaction was also immense, with the assassination becoming one of the most sensationalized events of its day. For a long time afterwards, Harrison's assassination was considered a well-remembered event in American history. However, it has since fallen into relative obscurity.
In the subsequent murder trial, Prendergast was found guilty of murder in the first-degree, and was sentenced to death. Legal efforts led by attorney Clarence Darrow to forestall his execution (including an attempt to have Prendergast legally found to be currently insane, a condition which under Illinois law would have rendered him ineligible for execution) were ultimately unsuccessful. Prendergast was executed by hanging.
Carter Harrison III was an American politician who served two tenures as mayor of Chicago: the first between 1879 and 1887 and the second beginning in 1893. Harrison was a Democrat.
Harrison unsuccessfully ran in 1891 to become mayor again. Harrison was returned to office in early 1893, winning election to an unprecedented fifth term as mayor. His fifth term overlapped with the city's hosting of the World's Columbian Exposition, a significant world's fair that was scheduled to hold its closing ceremonies on October 31. Harrison was due soon after to marry his fiancé, Annie Howard, on November 12.
Harrison was a well-liked mayor. Dubbed "the common man's mayor". and "the people's mayor", he made himself accessible to citizens. He took great pleasure in riding around the city's neighborhoods on horseback, stopping to speak with residents. He also made it known that his door was "always open", allowing citizens to drop-in for audiences with him at his residence. He had ordered his staff never to turn away any visitor to his residence. His policy of giving drop-in audiences to residents would lead to him finding himself fatally at the receiving end of gunshots fired by the aggrieved Patrick Eugene Prendergast.
The assassination was carried out by Patrick Eugene Prendergast, a newspaper distributor. Prendergast was reported to have suffered a severe head injury from a fall at the age of four, from which he was unconscious for a long period of time and suffered vomiting for four weeks after. He was described as a peculiar child, solitary, irritable and excitable, with a poor memory who did poorly in school. Prendergast left home at 16 because of imaginary persecution and by 18 had developed grandiose ideas of his capabilities and became a fanatic for the single-tax promoted by Henry George.
Prendergast became a newspaper distributor in Chicago, where he lobbied for improvements in Chicago's railroad grade crossings, which he saw as a danger to the public. He supported Carter Harrison's 1890s election campaigns under the delusion that if Harrison won the election, Prendergast himself would receive an appointment as the city's corporation counsel. Prendergast had a fixation with writing postcards. In order to support Carter Harrison's pursuit to regain the mayoralty, Prendergast sent rambling postcards to prominent Chicagoans urging them to vote for Harrison. Among those who received such a postcard was prominent lawyer A. S. Trude, who would later prosecute the case against Prendergast in the murder trial that followed the assassination. Prendergast sent these postcards in support of Harrison for more than two years before Harrison was successful in winning the 1893 Chicago mayoral election. Prendergast believed that his letters had been responsible for Harrison's success in the election.
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